Tim, The answer to this is No matter how many times guys are warned and told and they will still buy that shit that Drew Hoffman sells because they simply can not resist the cheap prices. Even guys who know better will still order that garbage and use it. Everybody wants a deal! Trouble is when dealing with anything that comes from the Hoffman Group the only thing you get is Fucked! The truth is I understand that those super cheap prices are hard to stay away from when it cost so much to build a car these days, But that shit just is not safe to be on the road! I have had guys bring me frontends that they ordered from Johnny law motors and want me to use it in a frame build for them and I refuse to have anything to do with any of that shit! I see guys advertising right here in the classifieds some of that garbage. Here is the deal, For me Hot rods is not a hobby. It is a big part of my life! I don't give a shit who wins the world series or the super bowl. Whatever time I am not directly with my family I am Hotroding. So when a clown like Drew Hoffman devalues and sells Unsafe garbage to guys who do not know any better, I take it personal!
Some of you may have seen pics of my supercharged 8BA flathead it has brand new Offenhauser heads but unfortunately when I finally got around to fitting them almost 20 years later one of them had casting flaws that even when partially pressurized pissed out water like a fountain I originally purchased the heads form Speedway Motors on a trip to the USA in 1997 (still had the receipt) and although they are way out of warranty Speedway talked to the crew at Offenhauser who agreed to replace the faulty head free of charge . All I needed do is stump up for the freight . In my book no companies could ever do better than that unless of course they sent me the air fare so I could pick the head up in person I truly hope they stay in business forever - I can't see too many companies standing by their product like they did. Even the best companies can turn out a dud every now and again - in my book how they respond when things go wrong that sorts to good from the bad.
In my book no companies could ever do better than that unless of course they sent me the air fare so I could pick the head up in person I truly hope they stay in business forever - I can't see too many companies standing by their product like they did. Even the best companies can turn out a dud every now and again - in my book how they respond when things go wrong that sorts to good from the bad.[/QUOTE] Unless of course you could use the airfare to pickup the replacement heads AND go to LARS at the same time. Damn, LARS is canceled, maybe next year.
I bought an intake manifold for my 300 six for my F100 from them last winter. Paid for it, and when it didn't arrive in a few weeks time, I called them. Believe it or not, someone actually picked up the phone. How about that? I was told the order of manifolds had just arrived from the foundry and needed to be machined yet. I received my order a few weeks later. I paid $285.00 directly to them. Others have that same manifold listed for at least a hundred bucks more. Could we ask for more than that? Lets have a look at this from the other person's perspective for a moment. If you owned Offenhauser, would you cast up a whole bunch of parts, put them in a warehouse, then put them up for sale just so you wouldn't have to wait a few weeks for the parts? Wouldn't you do just what they do? Take orders so you know how many to produce, so as not to have unsold inventory on the shelves for years to come? Put yourself in their shoes. You know damn well you wouldn't spend money nowadays in a dying hobby just hoping that you can promote and sell your product? And they make many many products. Oh, and I bucked up years ago for a "made in America" Beverly shear, when the Harbor Freight shear would make do almost as well for 1/5 of the cost. Cheap bastards and greed is what got us into this mess, but I better stop there, cause that's getting political.
This is contrary to most, if not all,the common threads about a certain sheet metal company in Texas.
I remember picking up some racing parts years ago at a Speed Shop. The customer in front of me wanted a "Racer's Discount" on his stuff. Huh???
Undercutting your own distributors is a shit way to do buiness and a sure sign they are desperate for immediate money just to stay afloat. If this is the way they run their business they deserve to go under.
The distributorship business model is failing in more and more markets. People have wised up to the fact that distributors make products cost more while almost always not adding any value what so ever. Unless the distributor is offering included tech support or other value added services/features they just line there own pockets. Unless I get a benefit from a distributor I don't what to buy though them. Manufacturer sells a part for $100 to the distributor. Distributor sells that part to a retailer for a 40% mark up. Now the part is $140. Retailer sells the part to you for a 50% markup. You just paid $210 for the part. The market will bare $200ish for the item. Now they manufacturer dumps the distributor business model and sells direct either to the consumer or the retailer. They can sell it direct to the consumer for $200 or to the retailer for $150. In this model the manufacturer makes almost 50-100% more money and the buyer still pays the same money. Often less. This is pure business economics. If you need to make more money and the market won't bare more cost and/or you can't produce more product you cut out the middle man. They only people that complain are the middle men because their "free" money went away. Now there are times when a distributor model is still good and appropriate, but they are becoming less and less so. once the product is a commodity, the distributorship losses relevance.
Spoken like a true career middleman. While I have to agree that a $100 discount from a distributor’s price is not right, over the years many aftermarket companies have offered factory direct sales at the established suggested retail price. When I worked in the aftermarket, part of my job was improving production efficiency. What always pissed me off was the fact that warehousing distributors in many cases made more money off of our products than we did, and we designed and built the sh!t! And they were constantly pushing us to lower our price! I learned a lot having the pressures of building stuff cheaper and faster but the idea that the manufacturer had to take the hit while the WD made more money, never sat well with me. Occasionally a local hot rodder or racer would walk in wanting to buy something and we would usually direct them to the local speed shop but sometimes we would give them a break and sell them something at the Jobber price. It usually depended on the guys approach and what mood the front office people were in. I hope Offy can weather the storm. It seems like O’Brien Truckers has found the formula for a successful niche business in this era, maybe Offy can follow suit. I’m gonna go look at the white owl website again and see if there’s something I could use on my heaps. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
For your info I work for a manufacturer and I would be out of every one of my customers businsesses if I started selling to their customers behind their backs. Offenhauser can't even make a useable website. They rely on their distributors to provide that sevice for their customers and then take sales away from those same distributors. Not much lower than that IMO. If you can't stay afloat supplying distributors with timely products then don't offer it to them and sell direct. I can guarantee they can't stay afloat without those distributors but they don't seem to have any issue stabbing them in the back selling direct for less when they need some instant cash flow.
Just went to checkout the Offy website and yes, I have to agree it is kind of primitive, but workable. When you click on the products tab an file opens with a photocopied catalog that almost looks like it could be from 1965. What's amazing though is the content. I couldn't believe all the stuff they have listed. BBC tunnel rams with a 4 Weber carb top? All kinds of odd stuff. If you got some time to kill it's a neat read to go through it. https://offenhauser.co/
Hope either the rumors are false; or if true, that they survive. In ALL of the Offy products we purchased over the years, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM FIT PERFECTLY WITH NO MACHINING NECESSARY THE FIRST TIME! Cannot say the same about one of their competitors that cost me dozens of hours, and more than once! Really a quality product! As to the Studebaker comment, I remember well when they died. But like Pontiac much later, they died before they died officially! We had two Studebakers (trucks) at the time, a one-ton, and a two-ton. Jon.
After looking through their catalog you can bet on one thing, if they do fold up their tents nobody is going to step up to manufacture some of their odd stuff.
In an earlier post, I commented on the potential of Edelbrock buying Offy and market it as a nostalgia brand. In as much as they own their own foundry, it could be a win win
This is the way it use to work. Before the instant gratification of the internet. Let's say you read a magazine article, or saw an ad, for some super gizmo and you just had to have one for your heap. Walking into your local parts house to buy one your told they'd have to order it in. First they would try their stocking warehouse (think of a NAPA or other auto parts warehouse). Nope they didn't have one, but would get it from another warehouse. You'd just have to wait a few days longer. Enter the warehouse distributor. My wd experience comes from working at Arrow Speed in KCK for several years in the 90's. Our warehouse was enormous and it was packed from floor to ceiling with parts. Everything from Mr Gasket stuff, Cola crankshafts, lift kits, K & N filters, Accel, Holley, Edelbrock, etc. etc. etc., and yes of course several brands / styles of bug shields. Man bug shields sold well. Now here's the rub. Those parts weren't filling the warehouse on consignment from the manufactures hoping we'd sell their stuff so they could be paid. We placed orders for product with those manufactures and paid them for their stuff. Arrow Speed won the SEMA Warehouse Distributor Of The Year award several times. Why, was it great customer service? Nope. Was it for the lowest prices in town? Nope. Well then why? It's simple we paid our bills in a timely and predictable way. This helped keep the specialty manufactures in business and provided your home town parts house additional product lines to sell. How about a gasket set and coolant to go with your new intake manifold? But who cares anymore? We've got the internet and everything should be dirt cheap and on your doorstep yesterday. Maybe the old ways were flawed, but it kept a lot of people working and most guys were able to get what they wanted. As for pricing.... Let's look at an Offenhauser 240-300 Ford Six Dual Port Intake part number 6227-C. From Offenhauser's April 1, 1998 price sheet (the newest one I've got) whse dist cost from Offy is $125.00 suggested jobber is $171.25. The store you bought it from made the final choice on what you would pay for it. Obviously a corrupt system, but it kept plenty of people working and companies in business. But what do I know? -Dave
I don't want to go to far off the road into the weeds here but town sedan, while what you explained worked back then I think today it's an outdated business model. I have a friend that does pretty well selling landscape equipment. The way he tells it is that with many product lines the middle men have been cut out and (almost) all the profit is kept at the manufacturers level. His markup is also greatly reduced and then the end customer walks in and puts a credit card on the counter and there goes another few percent. He is also forced (extorted?) into paying an "advertising" fee for each line. If you don't pay, they eliminate your name as a stocking dealer on their company website. It's just as crooked now as it was then, the $$$ is just going into different pockets.
The stark reality is...I don;t care how it gets to me, as long as it does so in a rapid manner, and for as low a price as feasible. In my experience, this occurs most easily when ordering from the manufacturer, or from the established retailers like Summit. My hobby isn't to keep warehouse and dsitribution folks working.
I'm a little confused. If Offy is suffering because of the stay at home order how come other hot rod companies like TCI and Walden's are allowed to continue? If you go to Walden's Instagram page he says their shipping product everyday and I just had a friend who contacted TCI for a rear end kit and they told him it would ship in less than a week. Is it Offy's choice to be doing limited operation or are they being directed by the state?
That business purchase/plan with a working capital addition would be a hard sell in my neighborhood. Having sold my business recently, the banks were only interested in financing 80% of the cost and then the buyer needed enough personal collateral to make the deal doable. Since 2008-09 financing has changed for potential buyers. Getting a years worth of capital to operate (Burn Rate) I don’t see that happening unless they have some backing with very deep pockets. Later Lou
Can’t find any to ask, not a one in my phone book or in the yellow pages, still tryin to figure out what needs done to pipe in some Sunshine! Sent from my iPad using H.A.M.B.
And if they are closed what is ordering from them going to do? Push back their problem for another month without getting any product in return and then get stiffed when they go under next month when they can't pay their bills then either?
Keep in mind, I don't know if this is the cause of whatever economic problems they may be facing, just a guess. I'm sure it isn't helping any.
Even with the lock down order there are businesses around here who are "open". Manufacturing/service type stuff that normally have little walk-in traffic anyway, doors closed. I called and got the ok to drop off my headers for sandblasting, a two man shop. I dropped them off outside, picked them up outside, no harm no foul, stopped at our "essential" auto parts store for header paint (wearing my stylish mask and gloves) and the projects keep moving forward. I ordered a few items from Offy yesterday we'll see if they get here. I really wanted the four carb conversion for my wife's Corvair but it's the weld-on version and I don't plan to take that engine apart anytime soon. I was hoping it was the bolt-on version.
I just order the Offy 3x2 intake for my 331 Caddy from Speedway. It was in stock and has already shipped and at a great sale price.
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